Top 10 Worst Halloween Candy for Ruining Halloween

Halloween is one of the greatest days of the year. When you’re a kid, there’s nothing better than being encouraged to go out and stuff your face with as much candy as you can get your hands on. Halloween is fun for adults too, as handing out candy is a nostalgic reminder of our youth.

Unless, of course, your childhood Halloweens were bitter disappointments and you want to take it out on the next generation. Then you hand out one of these awful candies.

Editor’s Note: This is a repost of one of my favorite, funny lists. Seems appropriate since Halloween is a few days away. Enjoy.

10. Tootsie Rolls

Tootsie Rolls are ostensibly chewable, but by the time they make it to your candy bag they’ve become a jaw destroying nightmare. The damage they do to your mouth isn’t worth their taste, which resembles chocolate in the sense that roadkill resembles filet mignon.

The manufacturer’s website states that the recipe for Tootsie Rolls calls for part of the previous day’s batch to be included. The same philosophy must apply when they’re sold at Halloween, because every Tootsie Roll ever eaten tastes at least a year old.

Fun Halloween Fact: In World War II Tootsie Rolls were included in American field rations, as their toughness allowed them to survive a variety of environmental conditions. This proved invaluable to American soldiers who, in emergency situations, used the hardened candies to pelt Nazis to death.

9. Smarties

Combining low quality artificial fruit flavors with the taste and texture of chalk, Smarties are what people buy when they want to give out candy but don’t want to go over their budget of seven cents and a handful of lint. Each piece costs a fraction of a penny, and kids would rather you give them that money than this “treat.” You could replace Smarties with Tums and people would think it was a new and improved variety.

Fun Halloween Fact:In Canada Smarties are called Rockets to avoid confusion with another candy. Thousands of Canadian children have lost interest in becoming aerospace engineers as a result.

8. Necco Wafers

Necco Wafers were first made in 1847, and we’re pretty sure they’re still trying to sell the original batch. They’re from an era where a Halloween treat was getting to leave the coal mines an hour early, and their flavor reflects the fact that their target audience’s taste buds were permanently set to “dust.” Their label of “an American classic” couldn’t be less accurate if they were made from slaughtered bald eagles.

Fun Halloween Fact: In 2009 Necco introduced a new line of wafers featuring healthy all-natural ingredients and a muted color palate. This move was intended to eliminate whatever tiny sliver of joy the original candies might have contained.

7. Chocolate Coins

There’s something about the combination of chocolate and foil wrapping that turns an otherwise delicious food into a bitter disaster. Foil wrapped chocolate is disgusting, and it’s an especially disappointing candy because there’s no obvious reason why. Maybe the coins sit on store shelves for too long and don’t age well, or maybe their low cost is maintained by replacing the regular ingredients for chocolate with murdered drifters. We’ll never know.

Fun Halloween Fact: In 2008 a batch of chocolate coins were recalled after it was discovered they had been tainted with melamine. Authorities were worried that the dangerous industrial chemical would improve the taste of the coins to the point where children would become confused, their tiny brains unable to comprehend why their chocolate was suddenly edible.

6. Dubble Bubble Gum

Gum on Halloween is already a dubious prospect, as every minute spent chewing is a minute not spent shoveling candy into your mouth. But you can always save packs of Extra for those gloomy post-Halloween days—not so with Dubble Bubble, which starts out as tough as concrete and soon replaces diamonds as the world’s hardest substance. Your reward for ruining your teeth on a piece is a scant few seconds of what can only be generously described as flavor, after which it becomes a tasteless, rubbery mass. It’s more pleasant to chew the wrapper.

Fun Halloween Fact: Dubble Bubble was invented by an accountant, and to this day the gum is made primarily from shredded accounts receivable statements.

5. Jawbreakers

Jawbreakers suffer from the same flaw as gum—they take forever to eat. That would be okay if they tasted good, but their weak sugary flavor just doesn’t do it when you have piles of chocolate waiting. And let’s be honest—you thought the name was an exaggeration and bit down hard on one of these bad boys. Don’t be ashamed, we’ve all done it and we all have the chipped teeth to prove it. Kids don’t take a name like Jawbreaker as a warning, they take it as a challenge. Providing candy that encourages children to injure themselves is only a good idea if you plan on giving it away from an unmarked van.

Fun Halloween Fact: In 2003 a Jawbreaker that had been left out in the sun exploded, giving a nine year old girl minor burns. In the lawsuit that followed, the manufacturers admitted that Jawbreakers are intentionally designed to maim children.

4. Good & Plenty

Every child has fallen for the twisted trap that is Good & Plenty. They look tasty—the pink is probably cherry flavored, but what could the white be? You scoop a handful into your mouth to find out, chomp down, and Bam! Black liquorice.

Black liquorice is candy in the sense that someone who commits a stabbing in a hospital is a surgeon. Studies have shown that nobody under the age of 80 likes black liquorice, which is why the only way to sell it is with a diabolical disguise. You know that urban legend about psychopaths hiding razor blades in Halloween candy? They’re actually hiding black liquorice, because kids would rather eat the razors.

Fun Halloween Fact: The pink candies are dyed with K-Carmine, which is produced by crushing female cochineals (insects). This is a terrible waste, as just eating the bugs would be tastier than eating Good & Plenty.

3. Candy Jewelry

The niche market of candy that encourages cross-dressing consists largely of candy necklaces and ring pops. The former are part of the dreaded “tastes like chalk” family, while the latter turns into a sticky, disgusting mess the second you start eating one. Anything you touch the rest of the night becomes gooey and gross, and the cheap plastic scratches up your fingers to boot. To make matters worse, boys are mocked by their friends for wearing them, while you just know that the girls who get really into candy jewelery grow up to be harlots.

Fun Halloween Fact: Statisticians have observed a correlation between the increased production of candy necklaces and the increased number of gender reassignment surgeries.

2. Whatever Those Orange and Black Things Are Called

These rock-hard candies taste like a mixture of molasses and child abuse. Their manufacturer is so ashamed of them that nobody is even sure what they’re called, and rumor has it they’re only made in the dead of night in a hidden factory operated by the souls of the damned. Every adult who gives them out on Halloween turns into a bat and vanishes the next day. The moment a kid eats one is the moment their childhood ends.

Fun Halloween Fact: Intensive research has revealed that these candies do have a name, but it can only be pronounced if you’re a ten-tongued Lovecraftian horror.

1. Anything That Isn’t Candy

Apples, toothbrushes, pennies, the condoms that one creepy guy gave out… nothing is worse than getting something other than candy on candy day. Yeah, it’s important to get kids eating fruit and brushing their teeth, but come on. It’s Halloween. People who give out toothbrushes miss the point of the holiday worse than people on the Internet miss the point of Guy Fawkes Day.

The worst non-candy item of all is pencils. Anyone who hands out a school supply is saying, “Hey, kid, you know this magical day where you dress up in a cool costume, stay up late with your friends and get free candy from all sorts of nice people? It’s about to end and you’re going back to school tomorrow. Screw you.”

Fun Halloween Fact: Anyone who gives out toothpaste on Halloween is dead inside.

Nice list. I, for one, always loved getting Tootsie Rolls, Smarties, and chocolate coins during Halloween. 😛 I also liked getting bubble gum every now and then… it was a nice change of pace from just candy.

Its always been said that if you actually saw how a hot dog is made, you would never eat one again or if you saw the movie/documentary called “Super Size Me” you would never eat at a McDonald’s ever again. Well, thanks to this list, I will now be more careful as to what candy I will consume. I did like #10 and how tootsie rolls, if cold enough, were used to bludgeon Nazi German soldiers to death. Perhaps it was the Battle of the Bulge (where temperatures averaged -30 to -40 below zero) that hardened them into weapons.

My favorite one in the city that I grew up in was this very affluent home where I would go every Halloween and the owner of the home was the owner of an ice cream parlor. You would ring on his doorbell, say “Trick Or Treat” and right at the entrance, he had an ice cream dispenser exactly like one you would see if you went to the ice cream store and he would give you a double scoop ice cream cone either chocolate, strawberry or vanilla. I always chose the chocolate !!

To Stinger503. A very BIG thumbs up for the Lewis Black stand up regarding Candy Corn. I hated the stuff as well. I remember Lewis Black on the Conan O’ Brien show a couple of years ago, and he got into the subject of Michael Jackson saying that Michael Jackson is a joke in himself. He went on to say if you’re telling a joke to someone and forget the “punchline”, just say Michael Jackson. He began to tell a joke and said “Two Jews are walking down the street and heading for the nearest bar (this is where the punch line comes) the Jew forgets the punchline and Lewis Black says, “just say Michael Jackson” Funny as hell !!!

If it weren’t for one incident I had in high school, I would totally agree with your #1. My friends and I knocked on a door, and the resident came out to tell us that she was out of candy, but was giving out cans of Dr Pepper or Sprite instead. After walking around in a heavy costume in that weather (TN Halloween= about 70 degrees), that Dr. Pepper hit the sport more than any reese cup or snicker!

Now that’s a novel idea! Maybe I’ll try that when we have our “Santa Ana heatwaves” during Halloween here in Southern California ( usually it a bit chilly (and sometimes rainy) during Halloween but in some years it gets up to the mid 80’s to mid 90’s during the day on Halloween!)

I thought this was hilarious, but I disagree with #4 I love black licorice, and always have.
And up until now, I never even knew that Rockets(Smarties) had a different name in the USA, when I saw the word Smarties, I was shocked. Because the other candy that was referenced in this post (Canadian Smarties) are candy covered chocolate piece, kind of like M&Ms. And most Canadian kids, I know love Rockets(American Smarties)

#2 Are known as “Mary Jane Peanut Butter Kisses” Truly a “treat” that will get your house T.Peed or Egged. UGH! I hated those candies! I rather have either Tootsie Rolls,Neccos,Smarties or Good & Plenty than those Mary Janes Peanut Butter Kisses!!

Nice list but you forgot to include candy corn. That is the one Halloween candy i cannot stand. IDK why people love it but I don’t. I always thought it was gross and would dump all my candy corn on my brother after Halloween has ended.

To me it tasted like chalk and vomit combined into one “tasty treat.” I’d rather eat nails than candy corn.

My late grandmother gave those peanut-butter kiss things out for Halloween. I think they are supposed to be peanut -butter taffy. Of course it being grandma, we always act excited and ate a piece for our adoring grandmother. (Or get the spanking of our life when we got home.) I think it must have been a survivor of the depression and WWII thing and her idea of “kiddy” candy was a little tainted. (She also thought kids loved things like those gross circus peanut things and those fake little jelly orange slices.) From old people, if those candies come up I didn’t get upset. From younger parents, oh heck no! They knew better. My boyfriend loves Good and Plenty but I agree with the hatred of licorice. The only licorice taste I want is from liquor!

Hilarious! I don’t care if you make this post public or not–just had to tell you that this was one of the funniest articles I’ve ever read. Your comments about Good and Plenty, Necco Wafers, and the dreaded orange and black wrapped things made me laugh so hard that my stomach hurts as almost as bad as if I’d actually eaten any of the candies themselves.

This is hysterical and nostalgic. My trick or treat days were in the 1970s so I remember gettting all of these on Hallowe’en. The worst were peanuts – both the real ones in the shell and those fake marshmallow ones that were always stale & didn’t taste like anything. We used to feed them to the raccoons in our ravine.

What about comic books as a non-candy treat? A long as you don’t do like a comic book store did a few years age and give out an adult oriented book that was mixed in with the ones geared for kids, it can be a cool and different treat.

I love black liquorice and also salty liquorice. We love salty liquorice (aka salmiac liquorice) over here in the Nordic countries, as well as in the Netherlands and Northern Germany. The rest of the world seems to find it disgusting. I will never understand that, salty liquorice is delicious! 😀

Top 10 Worst Halloween Candy for Ruining Halloween- I’m not sure if anyone has mentioned it, but your title is a double negative. It should have been Top 10 Worst Halloween Candy for Halloween. The way the title reads, the candy listed would be the worst for ruining Halloween- in other words, if you were trying to ruin Halloween, what candy would be worst for that purpose?

I have noticed this, on this site as well as on some other sites (which I won’t mention since you don’t want me to send people to competing sites): People don’t read the actual list before posting a comment. I find that kind of silly. Why would you comment on something you just DIDN’T read?

It would save many arguments, that is for sure. I have mentioned many competing sites, so I don’t mind that anymore. I am comfortable in the product Toptenz.net puts out. We have loyal readers. In fact, I am writing a top 10 list of list sites and will be personally ranking sites and will provide links to all the top 10 results.

—-> my brother and I called these candies “Kiddie Tobacco”. We’d save them until the spring when all the snow melted, and then we’d go outside and play some catch/baseball. Growing up outside of Toronto, Pat Borders was the Jays’ catcher at the time, and we’d imitate the way he chewed and spat his tobacco. Stuff worked great for kiddies pretending to be in the big leagues. Of course, I’m a girl and our mother was quite appalled when she saw her two little angels in action out on the driveway.
Good times!

Kinda disagree with this list. I’m in my 20’s and I LOVE black liquorice. For the most part this list is highly accurate with entertaining descriptions. But get your facts straight, I know plenty who love black liquorice and Tootsie Rolls.

Kinda funny, I’m chewing on Smarties right now at work. And now I’m looking at them like; “What the hell was I thinking?”

Thanks for this top 10 gem. I laughed so hard at work I cried and as a result made my friends around me do the same.

Growing up in the GTA(greater toronto area) Canada, I am quite familiar with these “wonderful” treats. Candy Corn is one of the worst things you can ever put your mouth, I mean the shit is just rotten. #2 is the one that brought me to tears. In canada we call those halloween kisses, god knows why. They are harder than any known substance or material on this planet and taste like genocide. The look of defeat and horror in a childs face after eating one of those is one of lifes guilty pleasures.

I like tootsie roll , all the Hersey , Reese pieces and resse peanut butter, milk choclate m&m. And skittle and rocket/ sweet tart . That was all favorite halloween candy and also ripple and wavy lay plain chip.

Circus Peanuts are public domain candy (heck, they’ve been around since at least the mid-19th century), but it seems Melster and Spangler are THE two major makers of them. The differences is (1) Melster is usually sold in its own bags and Spangler is found in store brands or in Big Lots (the former Pic ‘n’ Save in USA and maybe other countries) as Queen City Candy/Sweet Treats, and in some major drug stores (“repackage” brands listed below)

(2) Melster is mostly found in Dollar Tree, Rite-Aid, and Big Lots!, nee Pic ‘n’ Save, most frequently, and Spangler is in other stores, including the three major nationwide USA (and possibly Canada and some Mexico outlets) drug stores, with the aforementioned “off-brand names”:

Spangler brand Circus Peanuts, and which store brands as whcih:
Rite-AID (originally as Pantry, now, then for some reason the name changed sold as Grab(??)
Walgreen’s (sold as Nice!)
CVS/(sic)Pharmacy (Gold Emblem)

Big Lots, as mentioned, sells them under the outside brand of Queen City which isn’t a store brand

(3)Melster is the more “Circus Peanut” like, aka the artificial banana flavor, while Spangler is more barbecue flavored and they use pectin, which really may go a long way to explaiing the jelly like texture.

(4) I identified Spangler as such by the stamp. They’ve been doing these since 1941. Melstr’s ite ha claimed to do them longer (Sathers and some others make Circus Peanuts as well).

(all comments regarding Spangler as being somewhat different are simply meant as that, as they are still tasteful, and are written with ALL due respect to the fine company).

Ha!! I Googled “Halloween Molasses Candy” and came across this site. As I have been craving for that hard, chewy, molasses taste of item #2 and as it is getting near Halloween, I have beekeeping an eye out for it in the grocery stores. I’m now thinking they don’t make it anymore. I trick-or-treated in the ’50s &’60s in Scarborough, Ontario. I don’t especially like black liquorice (except for Liquorice Allsorts) like some of the other folks here, but I happily gobbled it down with the rest of the loot.. some of which appeared unidentifiable but it was a safer era back then.

2nd last candy is called Halloween kisses, and I actually loved them as a kid…but then again in the 70s, in rural Ontario, Canada, we also grew up where we went to farms and got homemade candy apples, fudge, etc… as ell as huge chocolate bars. But since you keep saying “in Canada”, I take it you are in the States and then this list makes sense….after all you guys did start the supersize revolution, and put together bacon and chocolate…

I give away 2 different kinds of Kit Kats (brown and white chocolate). It does kill me to give the brown ones away, but not the white kind. I think white chocolate should have been on the list! As for candy corn, young Michael Myers from the Halloween remake ate candy corn from his treat bag and then went on a killing spree. Coincidence? I think not!

I have a big bowl I empty different things into & let the kids pick…this year it’s gummy body parts, fun size snickers & Mars, spooky themed temporary tattoo sheets (these were the first to go last year & I was universally hated by the parents), Freddo Frogs & chuppa chups.

As I’m in Australia we don’t have the same lollies you guys have & we don’t get nearly as many kids trick or treating so they’ll all get a handful of sugar & tattoos & be happy little Monsters.

Also, my parents recently came back from Hawaii & bright tootsie rolls (among other things) & they’re gross. WTF is it supposed to be? It’s like a very bad chewy worthers caramel had sex with a space food stick & had really awful babies.